Over 80% of the general population will experience back pain at some point in their lives.

Back pain
represents 30% of all workers' compensation boards' claims by injured
workers (more than twice the percentage of any other complaint).
Because of the acknowledged poor medical management of this complaint
and huge cost of chronic cases, these 30% of claims generate 60% of
total compensation costs.

Approximately $14
billion is spent annually on medical care and absenteeism directly
related to back pain. In 1985 alone, $6 billion was disbursed by
workers' compensation boards for the treatment of low back pain

C

Just an interesting fact on this increasingly popular form of health care:

Chiropractic
is the largest, most regulated, and best recognized of the
complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) professions.(Meeker, Haldeman; 2002; Annals of Internal Medicine)

Chiropractic Research

Numerous studies have shown that chiropractic treatment is both safe and effective.The following are excerpts from a few of the more recent studies.By
examining the research supporting chiropractic care, you will find that
chiropractic offers tremendous potential in meeting today’s health care
challenges.

For Acute and Chronic Pain

“Patients with chronic
low-back pain treated by chiropractors showed greater improvement and
satisfaction at one month than patients treated by family physicians. Satisfaction scores were higher for chiropracticpatients. A higher proportion of chiropracticpatients (56 percent vs. 13 percent) reported that theirlow-back pain was better or much better, whereasnearly one-third of medical patients reported theirlow-back pain was worse or much worse.”

In a Randomized controlled
trial, 183 patients with neck pain were randomly allocated to manual
therapy (spinal mobilization), physiotherapy (mainly exercise) or
general practitioner care (counseling, education and drugs) in a
52-week study. The clinical outcomes measures showed that manual
therapy resulted in faster recovery than physiotherapy and general practitioner care. Moreover, total costs of the manual therapy-treated patients were about one-third of the costs of physiotherapy or general practitioner care.

-- British Medical Journal, Korthals-de Bos et al. (2003)

Atlanta Accident Clinic

Whiplash:

Whiplash
is a nonmedical term used to describe neck pain following an injury to
the soft tissues of your neck (specifically ligaments, tendons, and
muscles). It is caused by an accidental motion or force applied to your
neck that results in movement beyond the neck's normal range of motion.

The
term whiplash was first used in 1928, and despite its replacement by
synonyms (such as acceleration flexion-extension neck injury and soft
tissue cervical hyperextension injury), it continues to be used to
describe this common soft tissue neck injury. Your doctor may use the
more specific terms of cervical sprain, cervical strain, or
hyperextension injury.

In Comparison to Other Treatment Alternatives

“Acute
and chronic chiropractic patients experienced better outcomes in pain,
functional disability, and patient satisfaction; clinically important
differences in pain and disability improvement were found for chronic
patients.”

“In
our randomized, controlled trial, we compared the effectiveness of
manual therapy, physical therapy, and continued care by a general
practitioner in patients with nonspecific neck pain. The success rate at sevenweeks was twice as high for the manual therapygroup (68.3
percent) as for the continued care group (general practitioner). Manual
therapy scored better than physical therapy on all outcome measures.
Patients receiving manual therapy had fewer absences from work than
patients receiving physical therapy or continued care, and manual
therapy and physical therapy each resulted in statistically significant
less analgesic use than continued care.”

“The
results of this study show that spinal manipulative therapy is an
effective treatment for tension headaches. . . Four weeks after
cessation of treatment . . . the patients who received spinal
manipulative therapy experienced a sustained therapeutic benefit in all
major outcomes in contrast to the patients that received amitriptyline
therapy, who reverted to baseline values.” ‘

“Chiropractic
care appeared relatively cost-effective for the treatment of chronic
low-back pain. Chiropractic and medical care performed comparably for
acute patients. Practice-based clinical outcomes were consistent with
systematic reviews of spinal manipulative efficacy: manipulation-based
therapy is at least as good as and, in some cases, better than other
therapeusis.”

“Chiropractic
patients were found to be more satisfied with their back care providers
after four weeks of treatment than were medical patients. Results from
observational studies suggested that back pain patients are more satisfied with chiropractic care than withmedical care. Additionally,
studies conclude that patients are more satisfied with chiropractic
care than they were with physical therapy after six weeks.”

-- American Journal of Public Health, Hertzman-Miller et al. (2002)

Popularity of Chiropractic

“Chiropractic
is the largest, most regulated, and best recognized of the
complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) professions. CAM patient
surveys show that chiropractors are used more often than anyother alternative provider group and patient satisfactionwith chiropractic care is very high. There is steadily increasing patient use of chiropractic in the United States, which has tripled in the past two decades.”